


you're just like a dream

by stepofthewind



Category: Black Mirror (TV), Black Mirror: San Junipero (2016)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepofthewind/pseuds/stepofthewind
Summary: After passing over, Kelly and Yorkie find themselves wanting to do what all lies in between the words they exchanged that fateful first night outside of Tucker's.





	you're just like a dream

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written like this in an awfully long time, so this is just me working with my writing style, but of course, my girls would be the ones to break what i will now call my sole personality trait, which is my writer's block. kelly and yorkie have quickly managed to become characters that i think i can claim to love more than most of the other characters i already love, and that's saying a lot, considering i hadn't known a thing about them until this year. i know, i know, i know. a sad time i was living in until then, to say the least. there is nobody else to blame but gracie, so i think i'll dedicate this to her. thank you for ruining my life in such an aesthetic way. now, i love in neon lights and '80s music. speaking of which, the title of this comes from "just like heaven" by the cure. ♡
> 
> my twitter is [@lovetaphope](https://twitter.com/lovetaphope), if you'd like to chat. now, cue the black mirror intro...

San Junipero is sun and sweetness and skin first before it is anything else to Yorkie.

She wakes up every morning like a woman from the dead, and these are the first sensations that take hold of her body, real as hell and certainly what she deserves after too short of a life spent running away from what made her. Really, she is one, a corpse to match how delicate she is, but it always feels so strange to say as much. There hasn’t come a moment anymore when it seems that she is no longer living, soul past the state of permanence. Where she lives now is not temporary for her, and that is an idea she is falling in love with fast. It’s disconcerting, the peace she has made with herself and her decision, but that’s what comes with death, isn’t it? Acceptance. Giving up a part of yourself and putting an end to the stubbornness.

Here’s the thing, though. She got lucky. _ So _ lucky.

Kelly is about as cosmic as they come. So, next, of course, San Junipero is a girl in glitter, the city embodied in someone dressed to the nines all the time, as if her life depends on it. Her eyes dazzle hot as a disco ball, her smile like a flash on a camera. She is fire on the run, yet Yorkie chases after those sparks that set off her heart like it’s something to demand, burning at the stake for someone she’d only sensed once in person.

She’s lucky because she has her, if that isn’t already obvious. Then again, she isn’t the only one feeling that way.

The sky is still pink with the remains of the sunrise when Yorkie looks out the panels upon panels of windows surrounding her. Conscious enough to take in the light streaming on in, she blinks once, twice. She doesn’t bother checking the clock because there’s no need to know the hour of day. Its irrelevance cracks a grin across her face.

A soft snore stirs her from her thoughts, and it is then that she remembers where she is. Next to Kelly in her bed, sheets a mess over a splay of body, she has never felt more alive. She listens to her breathe, and she knows that she’s sleeping soundly and dreaming deeply. Many nights with her falling asleep first have proven as much.

Eventually, Yorkie slips out of bed, bare feet on wood floor, soon to hit sand because she hates staying indoors. Not after spending a lifetime doing that. She reaches the door just as Kelly starts to stir, missing Yorkie’s warmth beside her without meaning to. It gets her to turn around and let her gaze linger on her longer.

Somebody get her out of the clouds and back down on the ground. She can’t believe this is her life now.

There is a moment when she is still staring at Kelly’s back, thinking about the night before, when her hands would carefully dance up and down from the blades of her shoulders to the bottom of her spine. She is leaning against the frame of the door as she pictures the tender scene. Her brows draw closer together in concentration, and her nose scrunches up the way it always does, albeit absent the glasses she used to hide behind with a bowed head. She feels more like herself without them. That doesn’t stop her from wondering where the weight of them went.

The kisses Kelly left on her neck, her jaw, her cheeks, her _ lips _ send their own thrills through her. There was a moment where there’d been two more delivered, one to each eyelid, and her lashes flutter at the memory.

In the next moment, there is a shock of cold at her ankles as surf climbs shore, a subtle crash. Gulls call in the distance, sent up into flight, almost as if they are surprised to see her. Acting as if she isn’t the only person in town that frequents here. She is no longer in the house but on the beach. It has become the one place anybody could find her, should she ever run away. Though she never stumbles more than a few footsteps far from Kelly’s, it feels like she gets transported somewhere miles away from San Junipero when she gets away from the heat of it all.

Not to the Quagmire. No way in hell. That is a place she wouldn’t dare step foot in again unless she were desperate.

The place doesn’t exist, now that she thinks about it. Maybe it’s just her mind and she’s getting lost in there instead. Who knows? Still, she drifts with the current, and she makes it to her destination. That train of thought gets derailed one way or another. Sometimes, she likes to make the impulsive claim that the beach is her second home. It couldn’t possibly replace Kelly because she is one in a million, but it certainly beats her parents and the paralyzing memories she has of them.

She stiffens up then, reprimanding herself for the idea that she could ever put her mother and her father under the spotlight in such a way, praying to whatever God is out there that they would understand her. They are long gone now, having never once visited her in the years she’d spent utterly alone, but it is instinct for her to salvage the little she has lost of them and search for the forgiveness she would never receive. If anything, she is the one that deserves an apology. That’s what Kelly would say.

Yorkie only wishes she had some measure of her strength.

_ Walk, _ she tells herself softly. _ Walking always helps. _

It’s a strange habit to adopt, but it’s one that gives her a routine nonetheless. Jogging is hardly her style, as she gets the feeling she’s not the most attractive runner in the world. Simply putting one foot in front of the other, however, is enough to put Yorkie at ease when it’s not Kelly’s soothing voice doing the job. She doesn’t want to be a burden to her, as much as she may insist otherwise.

San Junipero can be carefree so long as its essence isn’t lost. The last person she wants to be is the one that nearly ruins it all for the one she loves. _ Again. _

So, she walks.

Sand spills into the footsteps she makes, bits of the stuff sticking to her heels and kicking up to hit the backs of her legs. As nobody ever visits this far out of town, Yorkie has gotten used to not changing the second she’s out of bed. In nothing but underwear and a pale pink sweatshirt that hangs loosely from her lithe self, she’s more comfortable than she’s ever been. The sleeves are so long that they cover her hands easily. She plays with them as she strolls, curling them in and popping her palms out occasionally, only to let them recede back in and roll the ends right back out.

“You’re not going to leave me behind, are you?”

Every time Kelly’s and Yorkie’s eyes meet, it’s like something from a movie. Yorkie turns with the slowest patience when she hears Kelly's voice, teasing both parties with the time she takes. Her hair is thrown up with the wind, revealing a face poorly schooling itself into a calm expression. She can’t contain it, the explosion that happens inside of her, akin to fireworks on the Fourth. A shy smile creases the corner of her lips, a breath the only thing that’s able to escape her because words die instantly at the tip of her tongue. No matter how much thought she attempts to put into a sentence, Kelly is simply indescribable to her. There is nobody _ but _ her whenever she’s the one in Yorkie’s line of sight.

Like she thought, she isn’t the only one feeling that way.

Kelly stares back at Yorkie like she is the sun, her head tilting and shoulders lifting the way they always do whenever she sees her. She beams, and that’s how Yorkie knows Kelly is as flustered as she is. It’s not as easy to pick up on the cues when it comes to her, but when they show, she latches onto them like they are the only form of proof she has in terms of reciprocation, as if Kelly gushing over her in adoration on a daily basis isn’t enough. There is also something coy with the way she moves towards Yorkie, dramatic but still stilted in case it is too imposing. She takes caution with a lot of things, and it’s well-meaning, considering the trepidation their relationship instills in Yorkie. It isn’t one of hesitation, though. Yorkie would do anything for and with Kelly, but all of the things she can think of are firsts, and that’s scary.

Thankfully, the girl she’s stuck with for life gets that.

“Never,” Yorkie finally says with an exhale, reaching a hand out to Kelly. She takes it in kind, only to pull her into a kiss, open-mouthed, with no indecision. Kelly’s kisses are like sucker punches, but Yorkie catches each and every one of them, no problem. She’s _ tiny, _ after all. The last thing Yorkie expected was to be the tall one out of the two of them, all awkward limbs and little balance. Thus, their difference in height is a constant joke she keeps up, and in both their heads, that’s what they’re thinking of right now. She laughs as she notices Kelly’s attempts to level out on her toes, fighting the sand swept from under her feet as the tide rolls in.

“Are you _ laughing _ at me?” It’s a curious question that Kelly leaves on Yorkie’s lips, backing away mere centimeters away from her, eyes narrowed, pure suspicion.

“No!” Yorkie answers too quickly, biting her lip at the implication of anticipation, considering how fast it rushes out of her. Oh, that’s embarrassing.

“You were!”

“I wasn’t!”

Just to reassure her, Yorkie takes one step towards Kelly, her free hand finding the side of her face and cupping it with about as much grace as she can muster. She pecks one last kiss onto Kelly’s lips, and her eyes go wide, as if she were a teenager having the gesture done for her for the first time. Yorkie pinks as well. They may have old souls, but they’re still so new to all of this. It’s as if they're going through the motions of adolescence once more.

“Good morning, by the way,” Yorkie murmurs as they start to walk together now, intertwining hands and leaving behind two sets of footprints as they move farther and farther away from Kelly’s.

“Yeah, good morning to you, too,” Kelly grumbles, going with Yorkie only because she still has a grip on her hand. Well, not just that. She isn’t _ that _ mean, getting bright-eyed after a second, as if she now remembers where she is. “So...” she trails into conversation, matching Yorkie step for step.

“So?” Yorkie repeats, taking it and turning it inquisitively.

“So... what’s on our schedule for today?”

“Schedule?” Yorkie’s brows knit up then. Kelly always found it cute when they did that. She says the word like she doesn’t know what it means, as she does with many other things, so Kelly’s learned. In this case, that isn’t the problem, but her confusion resounds regardless. “Since when have we ever had a schedule?”

“True,” Kelly concedes, but not before being content enough to press on. “But you look like you’ve got something in mind. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise, you know.”

“I know,” Yorkie acknowledges her reluctantly as her eyes scan the coast again. She’s left searching for whatever it is she’s trying to find once more, with no such luck. Finally, she speaks, with every intention of concentrating on the girl next to her and the topic at hand. “Am I that obvious?” she questions, her voice going soft.

“_Very _ obvious,” Kelly responds without restraint. Speaking of which, what she says next practically comes out of nowhere. “Hey, you remember that time I asked...”

_ “What would you like to do? That you’ve never done?” _

Yorkie remembers it like it was yesterday. “Yeah,” she starts, deciding to say something that isn’t as deep as whatever she’s thinking. “We were standing in the _ pouring _ rain. How could I forget?”

Kelly goes slack-jawed before she decides to smack Yorkie lovingly on the arm. “Only because you ran out of Tucker’s!” she exclaims, completely in disbelief. “And if I recall correctly, we were under cover!”

It appears Yorkie isn’t the only one seeing it now. Neon overhead like halos on wet hair; light against slick brick at their backs. Calls to attention and the like echo down the alleyway as they small talk. Both their breaths taste of that Jack Daniel’s and Coca-Cola from the bar. What Yorkie remembers the most, though, is Kelly resting her hand on her thigh. She is reminded instantly of the rise she got out of it, and her cheeks go out at just the thought. Blush at her neck, she hopes the wind can whip it off her before Kelly can pick up on it and poke fun at it.

Nothing escapes Kelly’s notice. She doesn’t say anything explicitly, but Yorkie can only imagine what might come out of her mouth, judging by her suggesting gaze. Something along the lines of _ “I also recall you being _ so _ touch and go that night, too.” _ It’s almost as if she expects Yorkie to speak, _ ask _ anything. Reading her mind, she goes for exactly what Kelly wants.

“I never really answered your question, did I?”

Not the question about a schedule, but the question she’d asked that very first night Yorkie had tried San Junipero. Kelly had wondered aloud at the things Yorkie hadn’t been able to experience in her twenty-one years of life, so short and so unsweet. Rain running down her temple, some drops dripping down on the glasses she didn’t need, Yorkie hadn’t been able to give her anything clear at the time. It was because her answer was too enormous to squeeze into a single sentence. _ “Oh... so many things...” _she had said, trying her best. Such small words that could stretch so long. She had reduced them then, but what did she want to do with them now?

Kelly stays silent, only shaking her head in response.

Where to start, then?

Thank goodness Kelly is an impatient creature. After a solid minute of waiting, she can’t take the silence any longer, launching herself into a tangent that takes Yorkie by surprise. “You say you want to do so many things, Yorkie, but I want you to mean that,” she starts, emphasizing every last word. “I want you to mean it when you say that you want to do everything. _Nothing,_ even. Just something. San Junipero’s always been yours, mine, _ ours. _ I don’t want you to forget that. _ Ever. _ I want you to own it, if anything. Take what it’s giving you and don’t ever tell yourself that you don’t deserve it because I promise you, you do. After what you’ve been through? After what your _ family _ did to you? You deserve this more than anyone I know. You deserve —”

“Roller skating.”

Like that, Kelly screeches to a halt. They’ve stopped walking at this point, still very much holding hands, so also still very much in close proximity to one another. Upon processing what Yorkie has said, Kelly’s stubbornness gives way to a grin that is _actually_ contagious. Within seconds, that signature nervous smile of Yorkie’s has gone and replaced the intense look she’s had on her face all morning again. “I’ve never been roller skating,” she admits with finality, shaking their clasped hands as if the words are a confession she means to keep between the two of them.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Oh, how that makes Kelly’s heart ache. It isn’t out of pity that such a thing happens, though. It could be if she didn’t know Yorkie better, but alas. Soulmates know each other like the backs of their own hands, or however the phrasing goes. Thus, it is out of awe instead that she has the sensation, watching Yorkie’s careful movements after speaking such a normal thing out loud. There has been a lot let off chests between now and then, so when Yorkie gets around to working up the courage to something like this, the small things start to get big. They’re brave of her to say, so Kelly is with her every step of the way.

This may be because Kelly doesn’t know how to roller skate either, but she won’t ruin the moment now. They could get into a car first, turn some music on, and then she would break the news. “C’mon,” she instructs instead. She then takes her turn tugging Yorkie over the expanse of beach they have managed to cross in the time that’s passed.

“Where?” Yorkie asks, stumbling behind her, but still going along with her nonetheless. She has a feeling she knows the question to her answer, though she wants affirmation in that before she gets caught up in Kelly’s impulsive gestures. It’s something Yorkie loves about her, yes, but there are times when they accidentally get caught up in the wrong crowd due to the repercussions.

Not that that’s a bad thing. There doesn’t seem to actually be anything bad when it comes to Kelly.

“I know where we can go,” Kelly explains as she walks, purpose in her step. Having stuck around town to test its waters much longer than Yorkie has, she tends to know her way about the place more. Their drastically different experiences at the Quagmire prove that to be true. Yorkie hasn’t been back there once since she’d gone in search of Kelly all those weeks ago. Kelly, on the other hand, has made visits more times than she cares to admit. It wasn’t until Yorkie that she’d stopped going entirely. Maybe Wes, a man in way over his head and far from her mind now, had something to do that as well, but she wouldn’t dare give credit where it isn’t due.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Yorkie points out as they approach two cars parked together in the sand in front of Kelly’s, both cherry red in color and sparkling in the San Junipero sun. One is a Jeep, its condition strikingly perfect considering the wreck of the windshield Kelly had made of it one bad night. The other is a Miata, top down and rear end adorned with a license plate that appropriately reads “YORK1.”

“Just trust me on this one,” Kelly insists as they come to a stop between the vehicles. She kicks one of her car’s wheels while Yorkie slides her free hand across the side of her convertible. Their held hands sway slightly as they make their independent motions. “Who’s driving?” she then asks. “You or me?” 

“Me,” Yorkie replies confidently, not even hesitating. Out of her pocket comes her keys, which she twirls around a finger with clumsy execution. She moves to unlock the Miata, swinging the driver door open. With serious reluctance, Kelly releases her hold on Yorkie’s hand and circles around the car to get to shotgun. She opens the passenger door and they’re about to get in together, when she notices her clothes.

“Should we change?” she suggests, studying the nightgown she is in before looking up. “Hey!”

Yorkie has beaten her to it for once. Everything is rose-colored to her now, as she stares back at Kelly through heart-shaped sunglasses. They sit perched on her pale nose and above a grin that she can’t get off her face. She’s in that denim jacket she loves so much, and cuffed denim shorts to match, tight around the waist and loose at the thighs. Cinched with a thin pink belt and complete with a white tee shirt, Kelly squints to see at what’s printed on it.

Santa Rosa, California. In thin lettering and against a block of pink, it is nothing but a memory only they both know.

“Well?” Yorkie says, expectant but kind.

With that, Kelly is in something new. Seeing the ocean ended up having an influence on how she dressed herself, as the coat she wears now is a brilliant blue, cobalt in hue. Silver rhinestones line every edge of the jacket, their shapes hinting at small stars. They’re even connected by shining thread, as if to show sprawling constellations. Twin prints of fish sit on her shoulders, large and extravagant types that swim up to meet her. Their scales shimmer as she moves. Pearls hang from her neck and over the black lace of a bodysuit.

_ It’s so her, _ Yorkie thinks. _ I love it. _

“Yeah, you do,” Kelly agrees with perfect timing, and it is then that Yorkie realizes she has said her last thought out loud. Too flustered to argue, they finally slide into her car. Yorkie is getting the key in the ignition, Kelly is rummaging around in the glove compartment for a good cassette to play, and they are both buckling their seatbelts as the Miata’s engine starts to hum, ready to go.

“Where am I going?” Yorkie asks as she taps out a tune on the steering wheel, waiting on Kelly to make her selection. Their go-to is always Belinda Carlisle, of course, but Yorkie assumes Kelly wants a change of pace. She sure is being methodical with her choice, combing through her selection of tapes carefully. Yorkie doesn’t mind. They’ve got all the time in the world to kill, and then some. Yorkie doesn’t mind _ whatsoever. _As she waits, she begins to beat out a chorus, palms hitting hot leather as she hears their song start in her head.

“Where are _ we _ going, you mean?” Kelly corrects Yorkie as she skims past copies of Chicago and Club Nouveau. Both great bands, but not what she’s looking for today. She can hear Yorkie subconsciously tempting her with _ Heaven Is a Place on Earth, _ but she refuses to give in. No matter how good the song is on the trips they take, _ especially _ when they’re kissing each other and fully distracting Yorkie from not running them right off the road. Tough break with that thought. As if on cue, though, Kelly finds what she’s searching for. “Here we go!” she exclaims as she reels out a tape. She holds it up in the sunlight, and the cover is too familiar for Yorkie not to recognize.

_ Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. _ The Cure.

“Oh, you’re good,” Yorkie comments as Kelly opens the case and goes to slide the cassette into the player.

At that, Kelly looks offended. “What do you mean?” she demands jokingly. “I’m not always good?”

“I’m not answering that,” Yorkie levels with her smartly, light smirk growing as she messes with the stick shift and puts the car in reverse. Her hand flies to the back of the passenger seat headrest as she turns to check and see if she is safe to pull out. The sleeve of her denim jacket tugs back a bit then, so Kelly takes it as an opportunity to leave a kiss on her exposed wrist. Yorkie’s eyes widen and she almost starts to get flustered again, but she feigns a scandalous gasp before any red can creep up on her.

“Hey. I’m _ always _ good,” Kelly deadpans with bunched brows and narrowed eyes.

Yorkie just laughs. She can’t exactly deny that. “Just play the song already!” she says instead.

“Alright, alright!” Kelly concedes, but not before the thought of Yorkie being serious gets the better of her briefly. “I’m always good, though, right?”

“Better than good,” Yorkie breathes out reassuringly, not missing a beat. _ “Perfect.” _

She means it. She always means it. “What were we talking about again?” Kelly asks after a moment, leaning towards the radio to skip a couple of tracks and get to the song she wants.

“Who knows?”

“Not you, apparently.”

Yorkie rolls her eyes. “Like you’d know,” she murmurs under her breath, loving the banter and the way they bounce off each other despite herself.

“Hey!”

“You were the one that asked. I’m driving now.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Kelly’s hand wanders to a strand of hair straying away from Yorkie’s face then, and she takes care as she winds it around one of her fingers. Brown in the night, red in the day, she isn’t really sure how to describe the color of her lover’s hair. Disregarding shade entirely, it’s beautiful, and that alone feels like an adequate enough word to use. Everything about her is beautiful. While she does on occasion miss Yorkie’s pair of glasses, she revels in the way she looks without them, too. Who knew that behind those large lenses, there were these wide eyes, always so full of meaning and longing? Who knew that behind them, there was this sparse ration of freckles, small but so her in the way that they stood out? Yorkie is brighter without them, as if they were a screen shielding rays that Kelly just basks in now.

She is so caught up in catching every detail on Yorkie’s dimple-shy face that she almost doesn’t notice when she turns her head and gives her a look of expectance.

“Drive to Tucker’s, and we’ll walk from there,” Kelly directs her, voice all dreamy. The way she sounds makes Yorkie’s heart skip. It’s her doing that to Kelly, isn’t it? It’s her.

With that, she steps on the gas, and they speed off, straight to the heart of San Junipero.

_ ♫ “Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick. The one that makes me scream,” she said. ♫ _  
_ ♫ "The one that makes me laugh,” she said and threw her arms around my neck. ♫ _  
_ ♫ “Show me how you do it, and I promise you. I promise that I'll run away with you. I'll run away with you.” ♫ _

**Author's Note:**

> if this gets enough love, maybe i'll give these two the second part they rightfully deserve. well, let's be honest. i'll probably give them one either way. in time. anyway, it would mean the world to me if i could get a comment on this!!! your feedback is seriously appreciated. it'd even mean more if you checked out [this piece](https://flipscreened.com/2019/08/06/san-junipero-on-seeing-yourself-loving-someone-else-and-letting-go/) i wrote on the episode. it's all sorts of personal, which makes it something i also love. thank you for so much for reading.


End file.
